Defector Changes Mind, Leaves USA for USSR

The Russian exchange student granted asylum in the United States in January departed for the Soviet Union yesterday, having decided to return even before the end of his official stay at Harvard as a member of the Soviet-American cultural exchange program.

Yuri Alckseyevitch Asseyev, a former associate professor of Philosophy at the University of Leningrad, had been a patient in McLean Hospital, a mental institution in Belmont, since his attempted jump onto the tracks of the Harvard Square MTA station on Feb. 29.

After a Jan. 2 leap from a Harvard St. apartment window, Asseyev met with Soviet and American officials in Cambridge City Hospital to arrange for permission to stay in this country after the expiration of his official visa in June. Whle the Feb. 29 incident did not change his status with the State Department, he was free to reconsider his decision until June.

Thirty-five-year-old Asseyev has not been an active student here since January, an official of the University said yesterday. Since September he had been studying in the Social Relations Department, concentrating on logical positivism and the Western sociology of knowledge.

Robert J. McCloskey, State Department press officer, said yesterday that he was unable to confirm the decision, but that it "seems likely" that Asseyev would return to the Soviet Union. The State Department is expected to issue a complete statement sometime this week.

Asseyev has reportedly been under great emotional stress since the January incident and his subsequent decision to seek asylum in this country. He has a wife and child in the Soviet Union, and there was some doubt about the success of any attempts to bring them to this country.

The University had no part in Asseyev's most recent plans which were arranged by McLean Hospital, the State Department, and the Russian Embassy, according to University sources. The final choice was apparently made independently by Asseyev, and there has been no official Soviet reaction.

Asseyev's Feb. 29 suicide attempt caused considerable excitement, as an MTA starter ran from his booth and stopped the Soviet student a few feet from the edge of the platform. Police reports since then have been confidential, and this brought speculation that the case has serious international repercussions. This theory has been ruled out by the State Department, however.